Posted on July 23, 2010 | Category: Opinion
Firstly a little bit of backstory. One Day cricket was what you might call my “gateway drug” into cricket with the first match I ever saw of cricket (at least that I can vividly remember) was Australia vs Sri Lanka in the Boxing Day ODI in 1989 with mum and dad in our flat in St. Kilda. Hell I even remember afterwards playing cricket at the back of the flats with one of the neighbours discussing how when we were going to get replica kits, “One with my name on the back and one with Dean Jones’s name on the back”, so to say I’m a fan of One Day cricket is an understatement. But onto my gripes with the changes Cricket Australia wants to implement to my favourite format.
1. 40 OVERS A SIDE
Australia is the number one ranked One Day side in the world, the reigning World Champions winning the 1999, 2003 and 2007 and became the first team to retain the Champions Trophy for one reason. Our domestic competition exists to build players for the national team. If the highest form of List A cricket is played for 50 overs then lets keep it that way. Australia doesn’t need (or want) Pro40, Super 40s, Ranger40s or whatever they try to brand it.
2. SPLIT INNINGS
Two 20 over innings a team in theory makes it sound like a One Day Test match on paper and does give both teams equal advantage to play on similar conditions but due to the vague nature of Cricket Australia’s plan what are the official rules? Some of the best drama in a Test match is the battle of Win vs Draw. Lets say Victoria take on Western Australia in a Split Innings Match (we’ll dub it SIM for the time being) and West Australia’s first innings score is 5/115 and in reply Victoria score 2/225. Does WA have to set a target for Victoria? What happens if Victoria bowl them out before they make up the deficit? Are the two innings compulsory? What if one team gets skittled for 50 runs in two innings? Does that make for interesting viewing?
3. CLASSIFICATION
All these new rules and “innovations” make it a completely different game. If they distinguish Twenty20 and List A as different formats when they basically only differ in how many overs you can bat and how many overs a bowler can bowl then how the hell can you introduce all these new rules and laws and still classify these split matches as List A cricket?
4. DESIGNATED “HITTER” (or the MARK BOUCHER RULE)
This one’s the new rule that absolutely drives me up the wall! Cricinfo describes this new rule as similar to the one used in baseball which means that a dismissed batsman could make a second appearance in place of a tail ender. I’m sorry Cricket Australia but contrary to popular belief, I love watching tail enders bat. Lemme ask you this Cricket Australia. In the infamous 438 match at Johannesburg in 2006, would the match have had the same drama in it if instead of Makhaya Ntini walking out to face Brett Lee in the final over it was say, Jacques Kallis? I dont think so.
These are some of my gripes that I have with Cricket Australia’s new proposals. There is nothing wrong with the One Day format. You want to fix it? Stop having pointless seven match bi-lateral series and make the matches mean something, keep those ridiculous boundary ropes off the goddam ground and restricted to Twenty20s only, and finally stop introducing new laws like Supersubs and whatnot! One Day Internationals are meant to be a fun day out at the cricket and I’ll be damned if you do anything to change that.
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